Monday’s Game — LSU 10, Little Rock 6

(LSU advances to super regional)

 

It was scary for a good while Monday night in the  championship game of the NCAA tournament’s Baton Rouge regional.

LSU needed a big comeback and some clutch work out of the bullpen, but the Tigers  will be back in Alex Box Stadium for super regionals, needing two more wins to reach the College World Series.

“One of the best wins of my entire career because of what t hey had to do to earn it,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said after LSU rallied for a 10-6 win over Arkansas-Little Rock, surely the peskiest No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.

The Tigers (46-15) will host West Virginia beginning Friday. The Mountaineers (44-14) won the Clemson regional as the No. 2 seed.

The Tigers will be going to the super regional for the 17th time in the 26 years of the format.

But ignore the final score. It was a much tighter game than that.

The Tigers didn’t take the lead until the seventh, and the upstart Trojans, who embarrassed LSU 10-4 Sunday night, had the tying and go-ahead runs on in the bottom of the eighth inning.

“They were not going to let each lose tonight,” Johnson said. “They fully believed they could do it. I’m even more proud because we had a couple of opportunities that didn’t come through early. It didn’t come easily.”

Ethan Frey went 4-for-4 with a home run and four RBIs, Luis Hernandez had a pair of homers and Jared Jones broke out of his prolonged slump with a 2-run bomb in the ninth for insurance. His 20th home run of the season was his first extra base hit since mid-May.

Frey hit a solo home run in the first, got LSU back in the game with a 3-run double in the fourth and scored the go-ahead run in the seventh after leading off the inning with his second double.

Hernandez tied the game with a towering homer in the sixth and hit another — both moon shots — in the eighth for a 7-5 LSU lead.

Little Rock got a run in the bottom of the eighth, but the Tigers got more insurance in the ninth, highlighted when Jones unloaded for a 2-run homer and capped when Hernandez drove in his third run of the game with an RBI single to left.

The LSU star of the game, however, was freshman pitcher Casen Evans, who was summoned from the bullpen with LSU down 5-1 in the second.

All he did was blank Little Rock for six innings before the Trojans pushed across a run in the bottom of the eighth.

Evans struck out 12 in six innings, including nine in a row at one point to give the Tigers a chance for the comeback.

Anthony Eyanson, the starter in Friday’s regional opener, got the final five outs, three on strike outs.

LSU pitching combined to strike out 16.

“LSU did what good teams are supposed to do,” said Little Rock coach Chris Curry, whose Trojans who were trying to become the first team in history to reach a super regional with a losing record. “When the inning was set up for them …they got the big hit. They played like a championship team tonight.”

It looked bleak early, however, as the Tigers picked up where they left off from Sunday’s debacle.

The Trojans took advantage of some sloppy LSU defense to score five of their runs in the second for a 5-1 lead.

It was sparked by an LSU  mental error and egged along by the Tigers only fielding error of the game.

With runners on first and second and no outs after starter Zac Cowan opened the inning with a walk and a hit batter, regional MVP Angel Cano hit a dribbler down the first base line that Jones decided to let roll foul instead of taking an easy out.

Cano hit the next pitch for an RBI single, and after a sacrifice and a walk, the Trojans got a 2-run single and two more after a throwing error by second baseman Daniel Dickinson.

That lured Evans from the bullpen.

And, as Curry said, “It all came to a screeching halt.”

“He was nasty,” Cano said. “He was spinning it really good.”

Little Rock had never won an NCAA tournament game before winning three in a row to set up the winner-take-all game Monday night.

Head coach Chris Curry was disappointed.

“But these men changed Little Rock baseball forever,” he said. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to coach them. Proud, proud of my guys.”